Yoda's power and the stagnation of the Jedi Order

It has occurred to me that the fact that Master Yoda is the Jedi Order's best swordsman, and probably its most able member is evidence of the stagnation of the Jedi Order. After all, why wouldn't there be a better Jedi in the 800 years since he started training Jedi? Isn't it a bad sign when the best member of your Order is also the oldest? Why hasn't the Order been able to produce other members of Yoda's calibre?

 

The force is something you gain mastery over through meditation and thought, so it makes logical sense that the person who has the most time to devote to it will be the most wise and powerful.

 

Yoda was not the best swordsman, he was just very stubborn.

When he tells Obi-Wan he isn't strong enough to fight Sidious, he' just being hard headed. Yoda admits this in Episode 3 when he's talking to Qui-Gon (in the book).

He admits his stubborness and his unwillingness to change the Jedi ways the past 800 ways.
In my opinion, Obi-Wan was the better duelist by the time of Episode 3.

 

I agree that the Jedi Order had become very stagnant and set in their ways. They put too much focus on upholding tradition and not enough on following the changes in the Force ("keep your concentration here and now, where it belongs" was very solid advice). They focussed on the past rather than the present, and that is what led to their downfall.

However, I don't think this is what led to Yoda being the most powerful Jedi. Much of a Jedi's strength comes from knowledge and wisdom, and Yoda had been around long enough to have large amounts of both.

 

Correct me if Im wrong but didnt he say something in the book that the Sith did so well because in the 1000 years they were in hiding, they watched the Jedi and adapted; meanwhile the Jedi were set in their ways and refused to change with the current making it easier for the Sith to exploit this weakness?

 

Yes.

I've used this analogy many times before, but I'll use it again: The Jedi were like a frog in a pan of water. The heat was slowly turned up by the Sith, and by the time the Jedi noticed it, it was too late.

 

I think the real problem here is Yoda-with-a-lightsaber. When Lucas decided to end AOTC that way, he wasn't saying the Jedi were stagnating. Without realizing it, he was saying that the Force was limited in its combat capalities. Any Jedi or Sith can fight with a lightsaber. Obviously, to make the movie dramatic, he couldn't have Yoda beat everyone he fought in two rounds, so as good as Yoda was with a sword, he wasn't that much better than the rest of the best. And so, after 800 years of being a Jedi master, force lightening blocking and lightsaber combat is still as good as it gets.

But you might say, this proves the author's initial point. No, not really. Lucas didn't show Yoda fighting with a lightsaber to show that the Jedi were stagnating, he did it because he thought it is what the fans wanted. It was suppose to show how awesome Yoda was, but it just showed us that the Force was limited.

The way to correct the problem is to have Yoda do something new, something that is a step above conventional combat. Unfortunately -- for me at least -- I seem to be alone in this opinion.

 

i would agree with you, i've never really thought about that, but it would have been awesome to see something previously unheard of coming from yoda....but for me he was a step above conventional combat in AOTC and ROTS in that he was so quick and agile...no one else we see comes near to that kind of movement

 

Interesting post.

But I'm not so sure that Lucas' sole intention in showing Yoda with a lightsaber was to please fans. More and more it seems to me that one of the projects of eps. 1 - 3 was to show precisely the limitiations of the Jedi. Obi Wan Kenobi's earliest remarks in TPM were about his sense of some "elusive" trouble lurking, an idea which is quickly dismissed by even so wise a Jedi as Qui Gon Jinn. And how can we not be in dismay that the Jedi -- more specifically, Yoda! -- actively adopted the clone army, even when they knew they were being manipulated? And in ROTS, the Jedi willingly play into the "treason" which Sidious has plotted -- did they really think that they could take emergency powers after Palpatine's arrest?!

With this in mind, I think we're supposed to see Yoda's duel in AOTC as (heartbreakingly) pathetic. As much as we'd like to think otherwise, he's merely demonstrating the limitations of the Jedi: the Sith have mastered their game. From this perspective, the image of Yoda reflecting Sith lightening back at Dooku (and at Sidious in ROTS) is powerfully ambivalent. It gives sickening power to Palpatine's seductive claim that the Jedi and the Sith are nearly identical in almost every way.

 

Where does one begin with this question...

Allegiance to the Code, and not being flexible to the Will of the Force was the biggee...caused stagnation...can't feel the Dark Side...don't know how to deal with the Chosen One...can't get married...take 'em away when they are toddlers...

 

The night I a first saw epii, after the initial excitment was over, I did question Lucas's intentions for creating a cg, dueling Yoda. At that moment, I came to some of the same conclusions posted by Darth Stryphe. But now, I'm not so sure. To manipulate the force in any destructive way is the dark side.The duel then is the only real offensive strategy given to light jedi. In a way, the choice Yoda makes to initiate a duel with Dooku illustrates the unchanging weakness of the lightside to the darkside. It will never be as powerful. Ever. The only strength of the light lies in peace. And too much peace leads to stagnation. That is why the Republic crumbled. It just had to. Nothing could stop it.
To look into the future is a potential path to the darkside. That is why Qui-gon tells Obi-wan to be mindful of the living force. Anakin is not mindful and for that reason becomes one of Sidious's pawns. Yoda still scolds Luke for looking to the horizon even after he witnessed the destruction of The Republic for failing to do just that. He did not change his mind. Yoda, due to his age and understanding of the flow of the force knows how waxing and waning of the light is a nesseccary mechanism that cannot be avoided.